Tom was the first to arrive in the conference room for the staff meeting. Tom generally sat to the left, next to B'Elanna and Tuvok. Instead of taking his accustomed seat, Tom stood until Tuvok, Harry, and Chakotay had taken their usual seats at the table. As he had expected, there was an open seat between Harry and Chakotay, to Janeway's right, which Tom promptly took. When the engineer entered the room, she took the chair nearest the door next to the seat that Neelix ended up taking, positioning herself so that she would not need to see Tom's face during the meeting.

The staff meeting was routine compared to most of those they had been having since the Borg and 8472 had first made their presence known to them. A few reports about repairs, supply status reports, and personnel issues were reviewed. Captain Janeway noted that her pilot and chief engineer had taken seats as far away from each other as possible in the small room, as well as the fact that neither had more than the barest minimum to contribute to the discussion. She looked over to Chakotay. His eyes were on Lt. Torres and Lt. Paris as well, and he bore a troubled expression.

"Are there any other issues anyone wishes to bring up?" The captain looked at each of her officers in turn. No one spoke up. "I'd like to speak with you, commander, but everyone else is dismissed." As everyone rose from the table, looks were exchanged between Janeway's staff. It had been quite a while since a meeting had ended with the commander and the captain remaining behind for a private discussion; it was no longer considered routine. Paris and Torres, however, hardly noticed because they were busy avoiding each other. Paris hung back from the door until Torres was well clear and already striding toward the turbolift to go to Engineering.

"Commander, what's going on between Tom and B'Elanna? A lover's spat?"

"You didn't hear about what happened last night at Sandrine's? The story is already all over the ship. From what I heard, it sounds like a lot more than a 'spat.' " He told the captain what he knew.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Tom, in particular, seemed so happy with her." She looked up at him sadly. "Our discussions about the dangers of 'fraternization' now seem to have an 'Exhibit A,' don't they?"

"Yes, Captain." Privately, he thought that Paris and Torres might be 'Exhibit B,' but he was too tactful to bring it up. "Is there anything else, Captain?"

"No, Commander." After a short pause, she added softly, "Dismissed."

After he left her, Captain Janeway walked slowly to her ready room, ruminating on maintaining crew morale when their journey home, taken objectively, was still only in its infancy.

"But Tom, what reason did she give for breaking it off?"

"Harry, I have no idea. She just said it wasn't what she wanted or needed. If she had an actual reason, she sure didn't bother to tell me what it was." The look in the helmsman's eyes was haunted and confused.

"Tom, you know how she gets sometimes. She'll come around. Just be nice to her when you see her. Don't crowd her, and this will all blow over."

"I hope you're right, Harry," Tom replied, in a hoarse, low tone. "This seemed different, somehow, though. She's been acting so strangely. And God knows, Harry, I did everything I could to avoid crowding her last night."

"She probably didn't see it that way."

"I guess not." Tom's sober expression was very unlike him. "Harry, do you think it is possible to love someone too much? I don't know . . . it almost seemed like she . . . she doesn't want me to love her."

"No, Tom, I don't think that's it. Maybe she just needs some time away from you to think things over."

Tom sighed. "I'm more than a little afraid that thinking things over away from me will turn into 'out of sight, out of mind.' She can do that, you know, just by burying herself in Engineering. She can always find something that needs to be fixed or made more efficient." Harry had to chuckle at that. He had been dragged into "efficiency upgrades" by B'Elanna on countless occasions

The two friends sat quietly, finishing their meal, until Harry finally offered, "Why don't Kes and I invite her for dinner? You can just 'drop in' during the meal. "

"You don't think she might get angrier if she smells a set-up, do you?"

"Kes can soothe her. It's worth a try."

"I guess it is worth a try, Harry. Especially since I don't have any better ideas at the moment."

If B'Elanna's staff in Engineering had thought that their chief had been difficult for the past week or two, they quickly recognized their mistake. Everyone was running constantly, responding to demands from Lt. Torres for the improvement of the efficiency ratings for virtually every piece of equipment in Engineering. When she made noises about moving to other areas of ship's functioning, Lt. Carey appealed to Commander Chakotay. Apologizing profusely for circumventing the usual chain of command, Carey begged the commander to have a talk with the lieutenant. After hearing out Mr. Carey, Chakotay agreed that, in this case, the decision to come directly to Chakotay appeared to be justified.

A short meeting between the commander and the chief engineer took place later in the day, with the avowed subject being the prioritizing of assignments so as not to lower staff efficiency through staff exhaustion. B'Elanna took the hint, although not particularly graciously. When Chakotay tried to open the discussion to B'Elanna's own state of mind, however, his overtures were brusquely received by the chief engineer.

"I'm doing just fine, thank you, Commander. Will that be all?"

"Yes, Lieutenant. That will be all." As she left his office, Chakotay sighed. He may have had his concerns about B'Elanna seeing Tom Paris, but he was beginning to suspect it might be even worse if B'Elanna were not with the helmsman.

Neelix's holographic resort program was running that evening. After the exciting events in Sandrine's the night before, a large percentage of the crew were milling around, hoping for another show. There was a great deal of brisk action among those who were of the betting persuasion. By the time Captain Janeway walked in with her latest pet project Seven-of-Nine, intending to provide the exiled Borg with another lesson on socializing during off-duty hours, the conversations were buzzing merrily. Many of these had to do with Captain Janeway's previous reclamation project, one Thomas Eugene Paris, who was holding court in the center of the resort.

Playboy Tom seemed to be back. Every woman received a bit of the famous Paris flirtatiousness, but a careful observer could see that the remarks, while pleasantly flattering and given with a smile, had no motivation other than to give the recipient a brief glow from being appreciated. Anyone, man or woman, who seemed in need of a few moments of attention received some. Even Seven-of-Nine was treated to a sample of Paris' gallantry when he came to where the captain and the former Borg were sitting, brought them each a drink, and chatted them up for several minutes. Captain Janeway was not fooled by his antics. The emptiness in his eyes told her all she needed to know.

"Tom, can we talk?" Megan Delaney waved him over to the table where she was sitting, alone at the moment.

"Sure. Need company? I thought I saw Gerron here before."

"He's over getting us something to drink. I don't suppose you want anything." She looked at his almost-full glass with a smidgen of disapproval. The colors in his glass had been changing all night, and she suspected that he was not limiting himself to synthehol.

Taking a seat across from Megan, Tom took a long swig of his drink.

"So, what do you want to talk about. Not me, I hope."

"Reading my mind, again, Tom? That's exactly the subject I had in mind. Or rather, we had in mind." Megan slid over to make room for Gerron, who was carrying a tray with two glasses of a fizzy pink liquid and a plate of hors d'oeuvres.

"I'm not a very interesting subject, even though I seem to be coming up in a lot of the conversations tonight." He took another long sip of his drink, then waved over a holodeck waiter to order another. Megan shared a glance with Gerron. It was even worse than they had thought.

"Tom, it's obvious how much you're hurting. If there is anything we can do, all you have to do is ask."

"Thanks, Meg, Gerron. I know you would help if you could. I'm not sure there is anything anyone can do." He paused, looking into the bottom of his now empty glass. "You know, I hailed her before I came here tonight. Asked her to dinner, just to eat, promised to keep it light, but she barely let me finish the invitation." He paused. "I'll have to give it some time, I think. Maybe I have to work on this on my own.

When he looked up from his glass, he could see sympathy and concern radiating from both pairs of eyes. "Just remember that if there is any way we can help, if you do need anyone to talk to, we'll listen. Both of us," Gerron said. Coming from him the offer might have meant even more than it might have from Megan. Tom had been close to her a long time, but even though he had not been as friendly with Gerron, Tom knew that the young Bajoran never said anything that he did not mean.

"Thanks, Gerron, Megan. I just may take you up on that." With the arrival of his drink, however, Tom made his good-byes and circulated the room once again.

"Do you think we'd have more luck talking to B'Elanna?" asked Gerron.

"Maybe if you did - you've known her longer than I have. I'm not sure what her reaction would be to me. I wish I knew what had gotten into her - they seemed so right for one another. I've never seen Tom like this before. He really has it bad for her."

Gerron put his arms around Megan and gave her a quick hug, which she responded to with a smile and a soft kiss. Seeing Tom's pain made them even more gratefully aware of their own feelings for one another.

Tom's social butterfly persona was in evidence all evening, but Janeway, Megan, and Gerron were not the only ones to realize it was a mask. When he left, Tom was intoxicated by something much stronger and more painful than synthehol, and no one failed to notice that he left alone.

After checking about the chief engineer's whereabouts via the comm system, Kes accidentally-on-purpose ran into her friend outside of Sickbay. The plans for a quiet dinner that would be interrupted by a certain tall, blond and blue-eyed human male had gone awry, simply because B'Elanna had not made herself available for an invitation when Harry had tried to ask her during the previous three days. Now it was time for the less subtle approach.

"Hi, B'Elanna, I've been looking for you."

"Here I am, Kes."

"I wanted to ask you about something."

"Not now, Kes. The Doctor is waiting for me. It's time for his weekly diagnostic."

"That's convenient, because I was just going to go into Sickbay myself. I have a few things to finish up before I meet Harry for dinner."

Smiling sweetly, Kes led B'Elanna into Sickbay. B'Elanna breathed in heavily but managed to keep herself from making any more noticeable sign of discomfort. She had been diligently avoiding Kes since the breakup with Tom. If anyone could recognize the tumultuous emotions that she had been trying so hard to keep in check, it would be the gentle but perceptive Ocampan woman.

When the two women entered his Sickbay, the Doctor registered their approach with what appeared to be some surprise. "Kes, I thought you were going to dinner."

"I had a few things to check up on in the lab." While saying this, Kes raised an eyebrow, tilted her head slightly, and then flashed an intent look at B'Elanna.

"Oh, of course, I remember now. Go right ahead. Carry on."

If B'Elanna didn't know better, she would have thought that the Doctor was actually getting flustered about something. "Are you experiencing some kind of difficulty, Doctor?"

"No, no, everything is just fine. That's why you're here, isn't it? To assure me that everything is fine."

B'Elanna stared at him. His behavior was decidedly odd. She would need to take extra care in her testing this evening.

B'Elanna checked the last reading on her instruments. "That's the last one, Doctor. According to the diagnostics, your program seems to be working perfectly. Do you have any concerns?" She was relieved that his unusual behavior did not appear to be due to any problems with the EMH system itself. After having an ample opportunity to put away her equipment without a reply from the Doctor, however, B'Elanna looked up at him. His usual answer was a brusque, "No, Lieutenant. Have a nice day." There was no doubt about it. He was looking at her with an unreadable look and definitely was acting abnormally.

"Doctor?"

"I, uh, don't have any concerns, exactly, but I was wondering if we might discuss something of a programming nature."

"Really, Doctor, I don't advise adding any more personality subroutines to your matrix, unless you are going to delete something. There are already so many variables in what constitutes your . . . ."

"Lieutenant, I'm not asking about your making any adjustments to my matrix. Not directly, at any rate." He stopped and cleared his throat for a second. B'Elanna wondered where that particular mannerism had come from. Had he been fooling around on his own again, or was it characteristic of one of the many doctors upon whom the EMH had been based? She was about to ask him about it when he went on, "I was thinking about my family. I'd like to extend the family program."

Of all the things that the Doctor might have said to B'Elanna, that was the least expected. "After all the pain you went through, when your daughter . . . .Doctor, do you really want to go through that again?"

"Of course I don't want to go through that kind of pain again, but going back to my family doesn't mean I will, necessarily. That kind of tragedy doesn't happen all the time, Lieutenant. I know it can happen more than once, of course. I have been reviewing the literature. Hopefully, Jeffrey and any future children would grow up hale and hearty."

"Future children!" B'Elanna looked at the Doctor and Kes in shock.

The Doctor made a face. "Well, the cat is out of the bag, as the saying goes. I don't even want to know how that particular saying got started, truth to tell. Well. Yes, I am considering having another child with Charlene. My wife. Jeffrey's mother."

"I know who Charlene is, Doctor. How could I ever forget her?" The saccharine sweetness of Mrs. Doctor as originally programmed had given B'Elanna a bad headache. "But, 'having a child?' "

"Kes and I have been talking it over. She felt that I had given up on the program too soon after Belle's death, that I didn't tie up all the loose ends, as it were. Since the program had never been deleted, I decided to go back a few more times. I did do a little programming, Lieutenant, I admit, but it was with Mr. Paris' and Mr. Kim's assistance, and they only helped me to advance the program a few months. I just couldn't - well, I had already gone back to the time immediately following my loss sufficiently for that. When I went back, though, Charlene was so glad to see me she broke down in tears. I found myself grieving with her again for Belle anyway.

"What Mr. Paris told me was true, Lt. Torres. Allowing myself to truly experience the grief and grow past it was beneficial. After I visited several more times, I realized how much more there is to family life than what I had experienced with the program as it had been originally designed. I had completely missed pregnancy, childbirth, infancy, and early childhood. I had jumped into my examination of family life far too precipitously. I might have gained valuable insight from dealing with a younger child that I might have used to avoid the pitfalls of dealing with teenagers. Charlene and I began to discuss having another baby, and I think it would be an excellent opportunity for me to explore other aspects of family life. Will you help me, Lieutenant?"

"I really think that the Doctor is right about pursuing this, B'Elanna," Kes jumped in eagerly. "Time can be telescoped a bit throughout the program - the Doctor and his family wouldn't be subject to the laws of real time that you and I are, so the pregnancy doesn't need to take nine months in real time as it usually does for humans - but think how much the Doctor could learn. He's been doing so much better in his interactions with the crew, just from what he's learned already."

After thinking about it, B'Elanna could see benefits in the plan. "All right, Doctor. I'll give it a try. While I'm at it, I'll look at the randomizing elements I added before. I think I may have gone overboard a little with the negatives after seeing the first version of the program." B'Elanna could not keep herself from cringing. That first look at the family over dinner had been a sickening experience, and she was sure that she had overreacted when she did her "tweaking." "We can get rid of Jeffrey's Klingon friends, and I'll make sure that future elements are fair to you in . . . "

"Lieutenant, you don't have to delete Larg and K'Kath. Once I got to know them and set some reasonable limits concerning Jeffrey's activities with them, it turned out that they weren't such bad influences after all. They were a great deal of help to Jeffrey when he was getting over the loss of his sister."

B'Elanna stared at him. This was getting stranger and stranger, but at least she finally understood the Doctor's earlier behavior, as well as Kes' unexpected presence in Sickbay when she should have been having dinner with Harry. "Fine, Doctor. I'll work on developing the birth and early childhood development program. Make sure that you let me know if you think about anything else. I don't want you tinkering with the program yourself." She picked up her instrument case and started to leave when an idea struck her. "Doctor, how do you want to . . . start this baby."

"What do you mean? Oh!" The Doctor looked shocked. "I hadn't really given that any thought, Lieutenant."

"You'd better."

"Perhaps you can give the Doctor the capability of choosing whether or not to experience that himself, B'Elanna," said Kes quietly. "Can you do that?"

"I believe I can. I happen to know of a few holodeck programs that are pretty - explicit - in that regard. We can make that one of the elements that you can control yourself, if you like."

"That would be acceptable." The Doctor's voice trailed off, but he was smiling especially broadly, his eye gaze far away.

Kes and B'Elanna exchanged grins. Apparently the Doctor was running through some of the possible scenarios already. B'Elanna had a feeling she already knew what his choice would be.

Kes followed B'Elanna out of Sickbay. "B'Elanna, wait a moment. I have something else I want to ask you."

"Yes, what is it?"

"Since it's so late, I thought you might like to join Harry and me for dinner in our quarters. We were going to replicate something for dinner tonight anyway, since we expected that the Doctor was going to be making his request to you tonight." Her smile was genuine, welcoming.

"Thanks for the invitation, Kes, but I wanted to get back to my own quarters early tonight. I've got a busy day coming up tomorrow."

"It's been a long time since we had a chance to talk together. We were really hoping that you'd come by, B'Elanna."

The half-Klingon engineer appraised her companion with a suspicious air. "Not to talk about a certain pilot, I hope," she snapped.

The expression on Kes' face revealed the truth, and she knew that only the truth would satisfy her friend now. "That was one of the subjects, yes, I admit it. But B'Elanna, he's been so unhappy, and . . . well . . . it seems like you have been avoiding us all since you argued with Tom. If you really don't want to talk about it, of course we'll respect that."

"I suppose he was going to 'just happen to drop by' while I was there?" Her eyes were flashing dangerously.

Kes sighed. "That was Harry's original plan, but I put a stop to that. Tonight we were really only going to talk. Please forgive us. We care about you both. I'm sorry if I've put you into an uncomfortable position by asking you this."

The earnest look displayed upon Kes' face sapped away B'Elanna's anger. It was hard to remain angry with Kes for long; her sincere desire for others to be happy was a well-known, foregone conclusion. "I know you meant well. Give my regrets to Harry."

As B'Elanna strode determinedly away, Kes found that she had to lean against the corridor wall, all of her energy drained away by her conversation with the engineer. After a few minutes resting, during which time her strength did not return as much as she expected, Kes signaled Harry to come meet her at Sickbay, without revealing the reason she wanted him to come. He would offer her his arm automatically out of courtesy, she knew. While waiting for Harry, Kes decided that if this feeling she was having was going to be typical, matchmaking was not an activity she would be doing much of in the future.

"Paris to Torres."

:::Torres here.:::

"Lieutenant, if you're free tonight, I'd like to invite you to dinner. No pushing. No pressure. Just two old friends having dinner. What do you say?"

:::Thanks for the offer. I'm busy.:::

The filtering effect of the comm transmission did not obscure the finality of the rejection in her voice. Asking her if she'd consider having dinner tomorrow, or the day after that, or the next day, would undoubtedly elicit the same response.

"Another time, then, Lieutenant."

:::Fine. Torres out.:::

Tom leaned against the wall in his quarters. At least she had answered his hail. That might be progress; but more likely, she thought of it as her duty, in case he had some engineering problem to be addressed. He had better not think of it as an opening for any future involvement. For the hundredth time he cursed himself for letting her get to him the way she had. But gotten to Tom, she had. No question.

If Tom had thought that the fantasies he had had about getting physical with Lt. Torres had preoccupied him before they first slept together, he now knew better. Those fantasies were nothing compared to the sharp, painful clarity of his memories of their time together on Tantrum IV and on board Voyager since their return. Over and over again in his head he heard echoes of her voice, felt the whisper of her touch, sensed the breath of her mouth on his. He shook his head to free himself of thoughts of her the way a dog shakes water off its body. He had to get a grip on himself.

And he had to get himself to the bridge. It was time for his shift. Quickly tugging on his boots, Tom left his quarters for his duty station at the helm.

Tom's shift had been boring today. Nothing new or interesting occurred to divert his attention from the grim thoughts that were plaguing his mind. The one good thing about the boring day was that a certain chief engineer had no cause to appear on the bridge for the entire shift. He would be thankful for small favors.

After a sparse, replicated dinner of chicken soup and crackers (he had to get the damned thing programmed for a good bowl of tomato soup someday, he just couldn't seem to get it right), Tom paced restlessly. Unfortunately for him, pacing reminded him of someone.

Groaning, Tom leaned his head in his hands for a couple of minutes before deciding he was being absolutely ridiculous about this. He needed to provide himself with a constructive outlet. Write a holonovel for the crew to enjoy, Tom - Janeway has given you carte blanche to do one. Let's see, how about a holonovel set on a lonely world of perpetual winter. Let's call it Temper Tantrum. There's an idea - the crew will love it. Instead of having everyone ask about what happened, they can live it!

The men get to be the feckless Starfleet helmsman, hopelessly in love with the ex-Maquis engineer. The women, of course, take on the role of the brilliantly talented chief engineer, who finds the helmsman's attentions hysterically funny, and ultimately, absurd. If the crew liked Insurrection Alpha, they'll love this one.

Ah, no, Tommy, that won't do. No point in writing a program that couldn't run on the holodeck. The safeties that prevent someone from getting hurt wouldn't allow for this program to run at all. No way for someone not to get hurt. Too bad.

He laughed. It was a bitter laugh, perhaps, but it was a laugh nonetheless. Tom, you really are wallowing in it now. You're feeling sorry for yourself, and that is a very, very, very bad place for Tom Paris to be. Tom Paris has done some stupendously stupid things when he was in this kind of mood - joining the Maquis, for instance. Going to the Resort, drinking himself silly, and making a fool of himself the other night was only the most recent example. When your ex-girlfriend and her new lover try to cheer you up, you know you've hit bottom. And the hangover the next day . . . whoa! Forget going out, at least in public, Paris.

Visiting Mr. and Mrs. Kim might be a possibility, as it was not like going to Sandrine's or the Resort. Harry and Kes had invited him over to their quarters tonight, but he felt awkward being in their company right now. They were so obviously honeymooners, practicing for Kes' Elogium, no doubt. Thinking of Harry caused a genuine smile to cross Tom's face. When Harry finally decided to get on with his life, he did it in spectacular fashion, that was for sure. They had much better things to do with their time right now than to play nursemaid to Tom Paris' broken heart. Much better things, things he would like to be doing with B'Elanna right now.

Thinking her name made him remember the hunger he had awakened in her. It was her due, that power of a Klingon woman that no one had ever bothered to nurture in her before Tom. As painful as it was for him to think about now, he realized that now he knew what all those gross comments made in those crummy bars were about. If nothing else, he had experienced a Klingon woman - or a half-Klingon, to be precise. Tom smiled wanly. The half-Klingon may have been enough for him; he doubted that he would have survived anything more intense than what they had experienced together.

Maybe she had just realized the truth about him; he wasn't really her type, after all. Maybe, Tom Paris, you should be grateful that you had a chance to experience that Klingon woman. Even more, you should be proud that you were the one responsible for awakening her to her own powers, even though another man would get the benefit someday, unfair as that might seem. Maybe giving her the gift of finding out that about herself should be enough for you. Too bad it didn't feel that way, but some things just are. You should have learned that by now, Tom.

Enough with the self-pity; Tom decided to do something constructive. He had some work to do. There were reports due about training flights for several of the crew's personnel records. Jim Joseph, especially, should be commended. Chakotay had mentioned his flying the Sacajawea for the monitoring flights. While Tom knew that the commander would have filed his own reports, Tom had some comments of his own, to tie Chakotay's reports in with his own recommendation that Jim was ready to serve as a pilot on some missions, not just as a co-pilot or for routine testing on repaired shuttles. Tom should make the entries. Work was good, it was apparently what she was doing since the break-up. He sat at his desk to do some nice, boring paperwork.

For over an hour, recording comments in the personnel files of his students occupied Lt. Paris' time. An entry to his official log, and another, short personal log entry followed. Then, when Tom remembered that he had forgotten to make an entry for one student, he turned back to the personnel files to make it up. That was it, though, and not even two hours were gone, including the time he had spent having dinner. Now what? Finish reading Women Warriors at the River of Blood? Guess not, no reason to finish that one now, although Tom was curious to know how it ended.

Tom was about to click on the story reader program when a fragment of a memory about looking up a certain personnel record flashed into his mind. An officer named Torres, about whom he actually knew very little, not even the man's first name. He hesitated. Now that B'Elanna and he were no longer together, he had little reason to look up that file. Ethically, he probably shouldn't. But as a senior officer of Voyager, he was authorized to enter such files. What if he found out something important, something that B'Elanna SHOULD know about her father?

After wrestling with the moral issues for a few minutes, Tom succumbed to the temptation. "Computer, access Starfleet Personnel Archive files, code Paris gamma-rho-theta."

:::Working.:::

"Computer, cite personnel records of active or inactive officers fitting the following established parameters: Last name, Torres."

:::There are 5647 entries that correspond to that request.:::

"Okay, how about "Home world, Earth."

:::There are 3284 entries that correspond to that request.:::

"Cross reference to entries citing the name of the planet Kessik IV."

:::There are 4 entries that correspond to that request.:::"

Now that was a surprise. A chance similarity of names? Or did B'Elanna have family members that she didn't even know about that lived on Kessik IV? Maybe he would have to look them all up, but first, a narrower approach.

"Cross reference to entries having the name B'Elanna Torres included in the entry."

:::There are 2 entries that correspond to that request.:::Ah hah! Bingo.

"Computer, display those two files."

Tom's computer screen lit up with the loaded files. The first was easy to dispose of: it was the record of one B'Elanna Torres, Starfleet Academy drop-out. Tom lingered over the record anyway. He felt a pang of desire as the the image of a young and belligerent-looking woman of half-Klingon, half-human blood glared out of the screen at him. If they could only have gotten together earlier, would it have been different for both of them? He hadn't really gotten to be a 'pig' until he had let Caldik Prime happen and was cashiered from Starfleet. Would respect for the honor of the Klingons, absorbed earlier, have enabled him to speak the truth from the beginning, when a minor reprimand instead of dishonorable discharge would have been his discipline? Could he have helped her cope with the Academy's demands and to gain confidence in herself sooner in life? He would never know. Tom reached out to graze the image's cheek with his fingertips.

After touching B'Elanna's image, Tom moved his thumb to advance the screen to the next file. He leaned his chin against his hand as he perused its contents. Why the marital breakup had occurred he could not say after reading the records; but that was an answer he never had expected to glean from the Starfleet records anyway. That did not alter the fact that the file of Lieutenant Commander Rafael Torres was an illuminating one in many ways. There were answers for B'Elanna here if she chose to search for them, but Tom doubted she ever would access this file. It was just a shame that it made for such depressing reading.